A social media video, a police raid and a court fight over $100K found in a shoebox, purse and suitcase

Then got here his on-line video three years later. 

He is seen flaunting a wad of money with a Beretta in his waistband – whereas on supervised launch after his felony conviction – prompting one other police raid and one other jail stint.

However the newer video might actual an added, steep price – $100,090 to be exact.

That is how a lot FBI brokers, probation officers and U.S. marshals seized throughout a search of his Schiller Park neighborhood residence on Oct. 19, 2021, in response to a court docket submitting in U.S. District Courtroom in Buffalo.

The federal government desires to maintain the cash, contending the abundance of $20 payments – 1,792 of them, totaling $35,840 – are the proceeds of street-level narcotics trafficking. The seized cash additionally included 399 $100 payments and 479 $50 payments, amongst different denominations.

The felony penalties of Miller’s social media video in 2021 resulted in March together with his sentence of time served, amounting to 5 months, plus extra time on supervised launch.

Now, Miller’s mom, Cheryl Miller, has put in a declare for the seized cash, establishing a civil case in federal court docket that has her lawyer and prosecutors from the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace negotiating how a lot the federal government ought to hold and the way a lot it ought to return from the raid.

“A few of the cash most likely belonged, I consider, to (her); some belonged to others which will have been in the home,” Assistant U.S. Lawyer James P. Kennedy Jr. advised U.S. District Choose William Skretny at a court docket listening to final week.

Assistant U.S. attorneys and the mom’s lawyer will evaluate police experiences and pictures of the raid to establish the place the cash was present in the home after which resolve “how you can break up that cash up appropriately for those who have been harmless owners versus these to whom the federal government believes it may possibly attribute the funds to narcotics trafficking,” Kennedy stated.

Kevin Spitler, the mom’s lawyer, stated she desires all the cash returned to her.

Spitler advised the choose he anticipates a settlement within the subsequent month with the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace.

“We are able to go over all the pictures on how the search was performed and in addition to verify … the events concerned in criminality that induced this search to be executed,” Spitler stated in court docket.

No matter cash prosecutors find yourself conserving will be credited to the social media posts that triggered the raid.

Keyon Miller resided on the Rogers Avenue residence together with his mom whereas on supervised launch when the U.S. Probation Workplace obtained social media movies of Miller “dancing with giant quantities of United States foreign money and a firearm,” in response to the court docket submitting. Miller additionally appeared within the movies with a convicted felon, which additionally violated the phrases of his supervised launch, prosecutors stated.

Miller filmed himself speaking in regards to the gang life-style whereas displaying the firearm, in response to court docket papers. Within the video, Miller dances with the firearm on his waistband, carrying big wads of cash and singing the lyrics to a rap tune titled “Sharing Places” by Meek Mill, together with the refrain: “I hold with all of the murderers. I’m payin’ all of the legal professionals for the murderers.”

Federal brokers arrested Miller through the raid on a cost of violating the phrases of his supervised launch.

They discovered a shotgun in an upstairs bed room, a 9 mm Beretta Nano handgun loaded with eight rounds of ammunition in a downstairs closet, foreign money in a shoebox and purse in a downstairs bed room, and extra foreign money in a suitcase in a downstairs bed room, in response to court docket information. The brokers additionally reported discovering a big bag of cocaine in a handbag in a closet and one other bag in a bin within the closet.

It is not the primary time a social media video that includes Miller led to a police raid. The social media video of Miller holding the chrome revolver was among the many causes police raided a home in September 2018, prosecutors stated.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Buffalo Police Division raided an Easton Avenue residence within the Kenfield neighborhood. The Buffalo police SWAT staff entered the residence. On the rear of the home, brokers noticed a loaded .357 caliber revolver thrown from a rear higher window. When SWAT members reached the higher ground, Keyon Miller was discovered popping out of the room from which the firearm was thrown out the window, in response to the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace. 

After that raid, Miller and his brothers Kevin Miller and Kaylen Miller have been charged with sustaining the Easton Avenue home as a spot to distribute marijuana and unlawfully possessing firearms.

Keyon Miller in March 2020 pleaded responsible to being an illegal person of a managed substance in possession of a firearm, and he was sentenced to serve two years, which he did in a neighborhood jail, adopted by two years of supervised launch.

His brother Kaylen Miller pleaded responsible to the identical cost in June 2019 and was sentenced to 18 months in jail, whereas his brother Kevin Miller in July 2020 pleaded responsible to conspiracy to own with intent to distribute managed substances and was sentenced to 5 years in jail.

A court docket submitting by an ATF agent through the 2018 case stated the Buffalo Police Division and Erie County Crime Evaluation Heart recognized the three Miller brothers as members of the Alma Gang, a neighborhood road gang.

However Keyon Miller disputed that characterization in letters to U.S. District Choose Lawrence Vilardo, who sentenced him to time served after the 2021 arrest.

Keyon Miller stated that in his probation after the 2018 arrest he spent greater than 425 days with none police run-ins or testing optimistic for medicine, and held a job for a lot of that point.

“However I am presupposed to be this gang member,” he stated in a single letter to the choose. “I used to be on a case with my two brothers. We aren’t a gang. We’re household.”

In a second letter to the choose he wrote, “I am being painted as this dangerous and harmful man that I’m not.”

Neither of his letters explains the firearms, medicine and money discovered within the 2021 raid within the Rogers Avenue residence.

He did clarify associating with one other felon within the video.

“I did the truth is affiliate with my long-term good friend, that acquired on probation whereas I used to be within the county jail,” he advised the choose. “I didn’t know he was a felon after I went to his home with him to verify on a rooster he had in a air fryer.

“If I used to be this dangerous man I’d have been doing the medicine they are saying I am hooked on,” he wrote the choose. “If I used to be harmful I’d of had some sort of contact with the legislation in 440 days.”

He known as it unfair to be portrayed “as a foul man for the one felony I’ve.”

“From the age of 16 to 21, I used to be younger and had many arrests, however I’m 29 now,” he advised the choose. “How lengthy ought to I be penalized for issues I did as a child.”